Vishy Anand is the only World Champion in history who won the World Championship in 3 different formats: Match (Bonn 2008), Tournament (Mexico City 2006) and Knockout (New Delhi & Tehran 2000). Anand won the 2003 World Rapid Chess Championship as well.

World Chess Champions 1993 – 2006

FIDE world champions

#

Name

Year

Country

18

Veselin Topalov

05–06

Bulgaria

17

Rustam Kasimdzhanov

04–05

Uzbekistan

16

Ruslan Ponomariov

02–04

Ukraine

15

Viswanathan Anand

00–02

India

14

Alexander Khalifman

99–00

Russia

12

Anatoly Karpov

93–99

Russia

Classical world champions

#

Name

Year

Country

14

Vladimir Kramnik

00–06

Russia

13

Garry Kasparov

93–00

Russia

Why two world chess champions?

In 1993, Garry Kasparov, who was the world champion at the time and his challenger Nigel Short established the Professional Chess Association (PCA), which was competing with FIDE. There were two world chess champions until the reunification match, which was held between Veselin Topalov and Vladimir Kramnik in late 2006.

The World Chess Federation (Fédération Internationale des Échecs, known as FIDE), was founded in Paris on the 20th day of July 1924. It is responsible for organizing the world chess championships. Its members are chess federations.

FIDE Presidents

Year

Country

6

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov > 13 yrs

1995 – present

Russia

5

Florencio Campomanes-13yrs

1982-1995

Philippines

4

Fridrik Olafsson - 4 yrs

1978-1982

Island

3

Max Euwe - 8 yrs

1970-1978

Netherlands

2

Folke Rogard - 21 yrs

1949-1970

Sweden

1

Alexander Rueb - 25 yrs

1924-1949

Netherlands

Dominance of the Russian chess players started shortly after FIDE was established. In Russia, the transformation of the game into modern chess emerged in the 17th century, much later than in Spain, Italy, France, Germany and UK. Read more about the Chess Queen.